When I struggle with my own words, I’ve found that the words of others can say that which I’m unable to truly express. Whether it’s through a song, a blog post by someone else, or a poem, it doesn’t matter… As long as it speaks to the deeper parts within me. As this poem does. What I love about poetry is that it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Maybe this one will speak to you too.
I went into a house, and it wasn’t a house,
It has big steps and a great big hall;
But it hasn’t got a garden,
A garden,
A garden,
It isn’t like a house at all.I went into a house, and it wasn’t a house,
It has a big garden and great high wall;
But it hasn’t got a may-tree,
A may-tree,
A may-tree,
It isn’t like a house at all.I went into a house, and it wasn’t a house –
Slow white petals from the may-tree fall;
But it hasn’t got a blackbird,
A blackbird,
A blackbird,
It isn’t like a house at all.I went into a house, and I thought it was a house,
I could hear from the may-tree the blackbird call…
But nobody listened to it,
Nobody
Liked it,
Nobody wanted it at all.© A.A. Milne
Journey Toward Healing 
8 responses to “The Wrong House”
Rayne, for some reason it hit me pretty deep
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It’s an amazing piece of writing.
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I agree, behind amazing
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It definitely spoke to me. Ty for sharing
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I’m glad you found meaning in it as well. And you’re welcome. 🙂
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Wow this is amazing thanks so much for sharing! I so agree with what you said about interpretation and I’m sure all our interpretations will be a bit different; for me this links so much to things that have gone on in my therapy in the past…Thanks again 🙂
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You’re welcome. I’m glad you also liked it. Yeah, and even for me, I can relate it to completely different things in my life. One day it represents something, and the next something else. I love that about poetry. Thanks for your comment. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Life in a Bind – BPD and me and commented:
I love this A A Milne poem -it immediately resonated with various aspects of my experience of therapy. For a long time I have though of a ‘house’ or ‘home’ as a metaphor for therapy, my ‘safe space’. This poem reminded me of all the times when I expected or wanted therapy to be a particular way, and and it ‘fell short’ of those expectations. I found it hard to accept that there were boundaries, that there was a person in front of me whose responses I couldn’t control, and that just because I felt I needed something, that didn’t mean that the need had to be met in the way I imagined it should be.
The poem also reminded me of all the times when therapy was giving me exactly what I needed, but I didn’t realise it because I wasn’t open to receiving it. It came later than I wanted, or was delivered in a different way to the one I was expecting.
My therapist quoted a different A A Milne poem to me a couple of weeks ago. We had an unexpected and lovely session talking about children’s literature, poems that we liked, and what we used to read. It was wonderfully connecting and moved me to tears. For many weeks I have been feeling trapped in a young, vulnerable, sad and unloved state, and a few days before that session I had written that I just wanted to feel loved and free. Somehow that session achieved just that, in a completely unexpected and spontaneous way. I am thankful that I was open to receiving something in a way I never would have imagined it could come.
It was the joy of someone taking a free, genuine and ‘no-strings-attached’ interest in who I was and what I enjoyed, without any expectation that I would conform to a particular way of being; and without any danger of me failing to measure up or being interested in ‘the wrong things’ (or not interested enough, in the right ones). It was also the joy of discovering ‘the other’ – again, without any sense that ‘the other’ demanded to be known, or expected to be mirrored, copied or agreed with.
I will be reading a lot more A A Milne over the coming weeks – part of my task of connecting more with those younger parts of me, and deriving simple benefit and joy from childlike things…..
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